


dread

by nightfurious



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Rekka no Ken | Fire Emblem: Blazing Sword
Genre: Angst, Gen, I wrote this to cope, character study of dart using the death of wil as a catalyst, clearly, dart struggles with his memory, inspired by an lp on youtube, the tragedy of wil......................
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-13
Updated: 2020-03-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:08:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23124514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightfurious/pseuds/nightfurious
Summary: Wil had left him behind again.
Relationships: Dart & Wil (Fire Emblem)
Kudos: 3





	dread

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by/based on the lp by the green scorpion and comicfoil. takes place at no specific point between chapter 32 (vs limstella) and endgame. 
> 
> i'm broken up over wil's death tbh. it wasn't their fault (it could have been avoided i suppose, tho i don't blame them whatsoever), but i miss him already. mr clutch crit deserved more
> 
> also, bc i mention it: in the lp, rebecca was killed (except, y'know, not, bc wolt) during the battle for caelin

The Dread Isle wasn’t half as bad as the name implied. It was full of wildlife, forests growing thickly on every corner, the occasional fog hanging low with a sort of beautiful mystique, showing no sign of the supposed curse that plagued it. When they weren’t battling, it was rather exhilarating to simply stand and breathe the crisp air. The only real downside was the heavy miasma of dark magic flowing menacingly through the air.

It was only the second time Dart had been to the Dread Isle, and being here again flooded him with memories of the first, when he had been given permission from Fargus to explore the island with the army. He had come a long way since then, literally; he followed the three enigmatic leaders from the Dread Isle, to Bern, to Nabata, back to Bern, to Ostia – frankly, he’d lost track at this point. He couldn’t say he was keeping up with the political tension, either (nor did he care), but he wasn’t about to back down from saving the world. So he offered them his axe in every battle, and they seemed to rely on him. It was a nice feeling, not that he’d ever admit it. He was mostly just glad to be exploring the world, the treasure map of Han Gak ever-present at his side.

What he wasn’t expecting was Wil.

Wil was certainly strange, and more than a little daft. He kept getting Dart’s name wrong at first, and he wouldn’t stop talking about someone named Dan, insisting that this stranger and Dart looked so much alike they _must_ be the same person. It was irritating at first, but then Wil told him who Dan was. And maybe – _maybe_ – there really was a chance they were the same.

But he didn’t know for sure then. And now, he never would.

Wil had always bothered him. At first, he’d attributed it to that carefree attitude, the inability to remember a one-syllable name, the way Dart always had to bail him out of trouble because he got too distracted calling him Dan. After hearing Wil’s story, though, he wondered if it was something inside him tugging at memories that weren’t there. No matter how it tried, it couldn’t bring back that which no longer existed.

Something else was tugging at him now. Something that made his insides crawl, bile rise to his throat, the ticking time bomb in his veins primed to burst. 

He was no stranger to loss, of course; the past five years on Fargus’s pirate crew had been far from peaceful, and he’d seen more than a few friends fall to some ungraceful end or another. This was different somehow. This felt like a door had closed on a part of his life he thought he might finally have found the key to. This was like poison, filling him from the inside as the image of Wil’s limp body dropping to the ground ran circles through his mind. Worse yet, this could have been avoided.

From what he’d heard, the ballista Wil had been assigned malfunctioned. Something or other went wrong, he couldn’t get a shot off, and his attention was drawn away from the battlefield. First, a brilliant flash of light that heralded Limstella’s bolt; then, a roar from Hector as an armored knight dodged past him; then, an enemy ballista near Dart fired, and time passed in slow motion as he followed the arrow’s path; last, a scream. He didn’t know whose. He didn’t care. He only cared about the scene he couldn’t reach, just beyond the mountains, just too far away, as his vision shifted red. From then on, the Dread Isle didn’t seem so beautiful.

Limstella was gone now. He had personally seen to that.

The others would occasionally refer to him as a berserker, something that was a pleasant surprise as much as it boosted his ego. He liked to think he had done the title proud.

Wil had been buried by now. Dart had helped, but he hadn’t gone by since. Here, in the darkness of the tent that had once been shared, the others could see neither the way he was being eaten from the inside, nor the turmoil that came from not knowing why.

He wasn’t even sure they could be called friends. Wil certainly would; that was just the type of person he was, too easy-going for his own good, all the way to the end. Dart remembered all the times they’d talked, every angry word he’d ever growled, every glance at the archer that dredged up memories full of nothing. He should have been honest. He should have told Wil that the man on the pier was him, and maybe Wil would have told him more about Dan. He was a pirate through-and-through now, but having a huge blank in his memory that stole even his own name got to him sometimes. Secondhand memories would be better than none.

He tried to tell himself he didn’t care, and when that failed, he wondered if maybe Wil hadn’t been the only person left from his past. Wil had mentioned someone else, a girl, who’d been gravely injured in a previous battle and left behind to recover. Her name was Rebecca. It stuck with Dart somehow, and for some blasted reason, the name made him think of fruit and fowl, as if that was supposed to mean something. But wherever she was, she was far away, and without Wil to lead him to her, he was just as stuck as ever.

Perhaps it was better this way. After this, he’d return to Fargus’s crew and live out his days there. One day, he’d find his treasure, create his own legend, and be revered as a pirate king for centuries. He would always have this hole in his memory, but he’d leave behind a legacy to compensate for it. Maybe the stories would reach Rebecca, or someone else who could connect the dots as easily as Wil had.

Still, they couldn’t replace Wil.

He didn’t like this. He’d never wanted to get close to Wil, never wanted anything to do with a life on land, never cared what happened before five years ago, but here he was, tormented by regret and a smiling face he’d never see again. He still had friends, still had the whole army as well as Fargus’s crew, but none of them would call him Dan.

Wil had left him behind again. Now, somehow, with the door to his past forever sealed, he felt lonelier than he ever had before.

A ghost of an arrow whizzed across his vision, and he closed his eyes.


End file.
